Month: April 2023

The A to Z Challenge – 2023 — P is for Post-Mortem

…

I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home.  A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers.  I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.

“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.”  She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.

It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor.  You should take up the competition ballroom dancing.  You two would kill it.”

“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants.  It’s worse than rugby.”

“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”

“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work.  I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”

“The joys of being a woman, Roger.  We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words.  I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.

If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare.  My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,

But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.

I was still coming down.  The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party.  A morning that was going to be in about five hours.

The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.

“Our ride,” Darcy said.  “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”

I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am.  I couldn’t sleep.

It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily.  It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom.  The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.

Why on earth did I go?

How could she possibly like me, let alone love me.  I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.

And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.

God, I was happier when I simply hated her.

My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’.  The torment begins.

“Who is it?”

“You know who it is.” 

Emily.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.  “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”

“It was the waltz.  I can’t sleep either.”

“What are we going to do.  I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”

“Haven’t you been in love before?”

I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?

“Not like this.  I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”

“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.”  Did I want that?  What did I want?  She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.

It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt.  That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.

“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”

“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”

“I don’t expect you to.  I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”

“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”

Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible.  It was, he said, a rite of passage.  Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.

I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.

But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others.  I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.

“You know why you’re not.”

Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation.  In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.

It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.

“OK, so I’m a little slower than others.  I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”

“There was a reporter at the ball.  She saw us together.  And she doesn’t like me, or my family.  I’m sure you’ll get ambushed.  It’s the price of having anything to do with us.  We’re not going to say anything.  You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others.  Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.

It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too.  It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil.  Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them.  It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.

“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”

“Some charity things.  All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that.  Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”

More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services.  My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.

“A good cause.”

“Some don’t think so.  Anyway, I’m tired now.  I’ll try not to run into you.  Night.”

Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less.  I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out.  She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.

I sighed.  Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.

…

©  Charles Heath 2023

It’s cold out there

But…

It is, but it isn’t.  Oddly enough after two weeks in temperatures ranging from -21 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, I think I’m finally used to it.

My early morning walk after leaving the hotel is both for exercise and exploring.

Looking for locations, observing people, watching and learning what it’s like to live, work, and hang out in a city like New York.

It’s so much more interesting than where I come from.  There it would be impossible to spin a story in such a small city.  You need to be able to hide in plain sight among millions of people over a very large area that encompasses Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and everything else in-between and beyond.

I was looking at going to a Walmart in Secaucus, about three and a half miles from my hotel in Manhattan.  Three and a half miles.  In my city that’s way beyond the limits of the city and in the outer suburbs.

Here I can spin a tale that could live within the confines of 35th street, 85th street, 2nd Avenue and 10th Avenue, and have so much material, I could probably write a trilogy.

Pity is, I won’t be here long enough to gather enough background.

Still, it’s like being in literary seventh heaven.

I’ve written one book based in New York, I’m sure another is currently writing itself in my head and will be on paper over the next year.

Then, maybe I’ll be back.

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 30

This is a rotunda at Newfarm Park in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

We were here a week or so ago to attend an open wedding in the park, in fact, under one of the majestic Moreton Bay Fig trees which is shaped much like an umbrella.

Weddings are conducted in the rotunda only if it is wet.

So, my first inclination is to write a story about a wedding that doesn’t quite go to plan, which I venture to say would be quite a few.

The one I attended had a few hiccups along the way, the odd bout of nerves, and a little tension from the lack of planning, or a practice.

But, in the end, all is well

Our story though will be slightly different. I have always wanted to attend a wedding where:

-The bride or groom or both didn’t turn up

-The celebrant got lost

-Someone had an objection when asked I’d someone had any reason why the wedding shouldn’t take place and the reason

-A fight breaks out between the bride and groom’s families, though that’s usually at the reception after when more alcohol has been consumed and feelings are running high.

-The bride or groom, at the last second, says ‘I don’t’.

But if it’s not a wedding, I’d use it as a meeting place for two old lovers who had made a pact seventy years before, no matter what happened, and if they were still alive, they’d meet there.

How much water would there have been under that bridge?

And conversely, two new acquaintances, in a stolen moment, decide to run away together and meet at the rotunda before leaving … only one of the siblings told their parents.

The wrong time!

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 12

Well, who are you people?

…

It was a distraction.

One minute I was looking at three people holding two of the freighter crew hostage, then next I was watching the three disintegrate into a matter stream, and disappear.

It was not possible, and yet I saw it with my own eyes.

I pressed the transmit button on my communicator and said, “What the hell was what?”

“A ship, twice the size of this vessel, came out of nowhere, appeared on screen for about a minute and then disappeared.”

“Along with our friends over here. They just dematerialised. It seems they can transport people whereas we can only transfer matter. On a good day.”

Another voice came over the freighter’s internal communications system, “Cargo supervisor to captain, it seems we have just lost a container of plutonium fuel rods, sir.”

“Did you hear that, sir?” I said.

“Those would be the rods needed on Venus we were sent to pick up. Without them, they’re about to go offline. Get back here now, we now have a humanitarian rescue mission. Out.”

I looked over at Myrtle. “We have to leave, I’ll be along in a minute.”

I walked over to Jacko who was looking far more relieved now he didn’t had a space gun being held to his head. “How did you get to be hauling Plutonium?”

“Only ship available, I guess. Freighters are stretched thin with this new building program on the outer planets. Can you call up head office and tell them we need repairs.”

“No comms?”

“No anything at the moment, except life support, and that’s likely to become a problem if they take their time. You know how it is.”

I did. Repairs never seemed to be a priority, not considering how much a ship cost.

“I’ll get the captain to get space command to put a rocket up them. Any idea who those people were?”

“Not any of us I reckon. I think we’ve just made first contact with a new species. And if they know what they can do with the plutonium, things might get a little interesting out here.”

Interesting indeed.

…

© Charles Heath 2021

NaNoWriMo – April – 2023 — Day 18

“The Things We Do For Love”

…

The old sparring partners keep their distance.

Henry because he doesn’t believe Harry has changed, Harry because he knows if the old rivalry restarts, Henry will leave, and he doesn’t want to be the one to cause it.

It takes a week to break the ice, and, finally, the two can talk.  Harry knows Henry is pining over a girl, so he asks the question.

For Henry, as far as he’s concerned, that ship has sailed. 

But Harry has a piece of advice for his brother, don’t let Michelle be the one that got away.

So begins the Odyssey.

It starts with reading up on the circumstances and reasons for the existence of such places where Michelle works, and why women finish up there.  It branches into drug addiction, of course from a medical view, with his father having an excellent library of books on the subject.

He then does a tour of what is broadly called the red light district, during the day, where it seems hidden away.  Then he branches into the newspaper archives and gets a different perspective.  Research can only do so much.

After getting a call from Villiers, a relative of Michelle’s she had once mentioned to him, he goes to see him, and they talk.  Villiers says she has contacted him and asked him to pass on a message that she will contact him when she needs his help, and it is the first indication she had not given up on them.  Villiers gives him another perspective on her.

It also means that the notion he goes looking for her, to see her, or rescue her, he wasn’t quite sure, was the right one.  Villiers wants him to go and rescue her.  The question is, is she worth rescuing?

…

Words written 4,548, for a total of 62,577

It’s late, I’m tired…

But…

There’s more to this story.

Or that’s what I keep telling myself, struggling to stay awake and write the next sentence then the next sentence, and the one after that.

Long after I should have gone to bed.

Does that sound like your life?

Of course, it doesn’t.  The rest of the world is sane, goes to work, come home, have dinner, watch a little television or play with the children, or maybe not, then go to bed.

None of this writing business, trying to finish the page, the scene, the chapter while the ideas are fresh in your mind.

Only your mind isn’t fresh, it’s been a long day, an argument with the significant other, a bigger argument with the cat, there’s the washing, the cooking, the cleaning…

When do I get five minutes for myself?

At the dead of night when everyone else has gone to bed, getting their eight hours sleep.

In the dark with only the screen to light the keyboard, I’m trying to find the way around the keyboard and turn out what has to be the next international best selling thriller.

The dog next door barks, it means the cat got out and is terrorizing it.

A door slams, it’s old Joe getting home late from the pub, probably drunk again.

Yep, right on target, the vitriol of a bitter woman, and I have to say, I don’t blame her.

Then I hear it, that voice from the deep, “Poppy.”

The youngest of the grandchildren, the very devil to get to sleep.

Writing for the night is over, time to read other people’s stories.

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation.  I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample.  I was going to give them the re-worked short story.  Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself.  We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected.  I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party.  I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble.  No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

Get it here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to go on a treasure hunt – Episode 51

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

—-

We took her car.  It wasn’t a limousine of the sort I’d seen the other Cossatino’s driving around in, but a shabby old compact that had seen better days.  Perhaps it was selected for its camouflage qualities, it fitted in with a lot of other old cars that the general population drove.

No one in this town could afford any better.  Not unless you were a Cossatino or a Benderby.  Alex, for instance, had been given a Porsche on his 18th birthday.  By comparison, I was given a new, but second hand, bicycle.

She had parked in a back street some distance from the hotel, and the several times I checked, we were not being followed.  She had noticed me looking over my shoulder a few times but hadn’t commented.  Not until we had driven several miles.

“Alex has one of his mates following me,” I said by way of an explanation.  “Alex seems to think I might lead them to the treasure, which is about as daft as it can get.”

“He’s clutching at straws.  His old man had found out what he’s doing, not that he has told him he knows, and he’s going out of his way to distract Alex.  Old man Benderby doesn’t think there is any treasure.”

“How do you know what the old man is doing?”

“Talks to my father.  They might be sworn enemies, but that doesn’t mean they don’t talk.  It amuses them to see Alex and Vince go head to head.  It’s a waste of time trying to impress their respective fathers.”

“What about you?”

“I’m not trying to impress anyone.  At the right time, I’m packing my bags and going back to Italy to live with the other branch of the family, the ones who are not interested in being master criminals.  I just want to soak up the Tuscan sun and drink wine.”

“I’m sure your father would have something to say about that.”

“He has, but I’m not interested in using my ‘wiles’ as he calls them to get men to spill their secrets.  I’ve seen what it’s done to my mother and my sisters.  I’m not a criminal.”

Not now perhaps.  But back in school, she used every asset to get what she wanted.  It won over Alex, and a few others, particularly those who did her schoolwork for her.  She had nearly every boy at school dangling on a puppet string.

I was lucky she never gave me a second look.

“Well, I’m sure you made a lot of boys happy.”

A sidelong glance told me that wasn’t the wisest of statements to make.  Despite the fact it was true, I guess it was a time she’d rather forget.

I changed the subject.  “So when you went away, I’m thinking you went over to Italy?”

“For a while.  My father thought I was getting a little too close to Alex and sent me to what he thought would be purgatory.  I loved it.  Pity I had to come back.”

We’d reached a small area behind a row of shrubs that shielded us from being seen from the mall.  Something else I’d noticed, it was a cloudy night, and off and on the moon would disappear behind a bank of scudding clouds, and then just before we arrived, the moon had completely disappeared.

When we got out of the car, the darkness closed in around us, and it took a minute or so for my eyes to adjust.  The black clothes almost made us invisible.

I watched her as she wrapped her hair up into a bun and secure it with a band.  Dragged back off her forehead, it made her look older.  It also accentuated the fact she had carefully applied makeup, an odd thing to do when about to go running around in a very dirty place.

The parking spot was a long way from where Boggs and I had last gained entry, so did she have a different entry point.

“Ready?” she asked.

“As ever.”

She took off at a quick pace and I found myself almost jogging to keep up.  She was very fit.  I was not.  We cut across another carpark, one of several surrounding the mall, this one giving some cover because originally there had been landscaping.  It was now overgrown and out of control, and we could move through it and no one could see us.

Not that there was anyone else there.

We came out of the garden, crossed a road, and into an inset where there was a door.

The rusting sign on the door said that the outside should be kept clear as it was a fire exit.

The lock, from what I could see, looked reasonably clean, unlike patches of rust on the door itself, and around the edges of the lock.

“I presume you have a key?”

She pulled a keyring out of her pocket with several keys on it, selected one, and inserted it in the lock.

Nothing.

She tried the next key.  Same result.  She tried the last key.

It turned, and the door swung open.  For a door that showed the rust it did, it moved easily and silently.

She stood to one side as I passed through, then she followed me in, closing the door behind us.  A sign on the back said the door was not to be used, except for fire emergencies, and was alarmed.  No power, no alarm.

“Don’t suppose I should ask where you got the key?”

“Best not.”  She handed me a small torch and turned hers on.  I followed suit.  There was not a lot of light in front of us.  It was, however, quite dark.

“Follow me,” she said, and we set off down a long narrow passage.

—-

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

“The Things We Do For Love” – Coming soon

Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?

For Henry the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself.  It takes him to a small village by the sea, a place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.

Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.  

Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.

A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone.  To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.

But can love conquer all?

It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red-light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.

The cover, at the moment, looks like this:

lovecoverfinal1

The A to Z Challenge – 2023 — P is for Post-Mortem

…

I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home.  A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers.  I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.

“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.”  She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.

It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor.  You should take up the competition ballroom dancing.  You two would kill it.”

“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants.  It’s worse than rugby.”

“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”

“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work.  I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”

“The joys of being a woman, Roger.  We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words.  I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.

If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare.  My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,

But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.

I was still coming down.  The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party.  A morning that was going to be in about five hours.

The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.

“Our ride,” Darcy said.  “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”

I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am.  I couldn’t sleep.

It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily.  It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom.  The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.

Why on earth did I go?

How could she possibly like me, let alone love me.  I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.

And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.

God, I was happier when I simply hated her.

My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’.  The torment begins.

“Who is it?”

“You know who it is.” 

Emily.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.  “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”

“It was the waltz.  I can’t sleep either.”

“What are we going to do.  I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”

“Haven’t you been in love before?”

I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?

“Not like this.  I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”

“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.”  Did I want that?  What did I want?  She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.

It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt.  That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.

“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”

“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”

“I don’t expect you to.  I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”

“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”

Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible.  It was, he said, a rite of passage.  Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.

I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.

But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others.  I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.

“You know why you’re not.”

Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation.  In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.

It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.

“OK, so I’m a little slower than others.  I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”

“There was a reporter at the ball.  She saw us together.  And she doesn’t like me, or my family.  I’m sure you’ll get ambushed.  It’s the price of having anything to do with us.  We’re not going to say anything.  You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others.  Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.

It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too.  It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil.  Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them.  It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.

“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”

“Some charity things.  All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that.  Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”

More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services.  My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.

“A good cause.”

“Some don’t think so.  Anyway, I’m tired now.  I’ll try not to run into you.  Night.”

Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less.  I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out.  She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.

I sighed.  Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.

…

©  Charles Heath 2023